Green Door Antique Store

Chapter 9: Nighttime

I was working on scheduling The Third Floor Coffee post when five doctors walked into Scott’s room and….I hit send. Oops!!! It actually arrived before the RockWall Chronicles. Sorry for overloading your inbox! So, how about an extra chapter of Green Door Antique Store today?

Green Door Antique Store: What’s that Secret You’re Keeping?

You can read the first four chapters here! The fifth chapter is here and Chapters Six and Seven are here and here. Chapter Eight is here. If you need the diagram again, it will always be at the end of the chapter. Want to get back in the mood for reading? Listen to Green Door, What’s That Secret You’re Keeping? again!

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Chapter Nine: Nighttime

I was sure the song had jinxed me—it seemed it was going to be a night without sleeping. I knew that my secrets had affected me as a mother. I had been honest about that after I began therapy and started unraveling my story of childhood trauma. I had even apologized to my daughter and yet here I was.

Why had she sent me to the Green Door Antique Store?

As I climbed into bed, I realized I did not find my headphones in my suitcase. I would miss playing music before going to sleep. Getting out of bed, I returned to my suitcase and began searching to see if I had overlooked them in a pocket somewhere.

Sure enough, they were in a side pocket and were attached to a folded piece of paper. Opening it up, I instantly recognized my daughter’s handwriting.

“Mom, we are good, but there is a secret at the Green Door Antique Store that you need to uncover. I know you can figure it out!”

Well, that was a relief! Maybe I can sleep now!

Climbing back into the bed, I was relieved but also more curious. After listening to a few songs, I realized a trip to the bathroom would be necessary before falling asleep. Quietly opening the door, I discovered I was not the only one who couldn’t sleep. I waved at the three women sitting in the living room and headed for the bathroom only to discover two more women there. That meant six out of ten of us were awake and maybe more simply hadn’t ventured out.

Returning to the living room along with the other two women in the restroom, we grabbed blankets from a basket in the corner and settled ourselves into chairs.

A woman I could not identify without her name tag groaned and said, “We are all going to be tired tomorrow. I tried to sleep but couldn’t.”

A door creaked open, and Jayne appeared. That made seven out of the ten. She also grabbed a blanket and sat in a chair next to me just as another door opened. All of us were there except for the two women who had wanted nothing to do with figuring things out.

After discussing plans for our booths for a while, Jayne asked, “Do any of you know why your daughter sent you here?”

The question seemed a bit direct since we were all clearly here about secrets we were keeping, but I was glad she asked the question. The question was met with silence from the other women, so I turned to Jayne and asked, “Do you know?”

“That’s fair,” Jayne said. “I shouldn’t expect anyone else to know if I don’t know, right?”

“Well, that is a relief,” Katelynn sighed. “I thought maybe I was the only one. I mean, not that I don’t have secrets. Doesn’t everyone? But they are of no concern to my daughter. They don’t need to know what skeletons we have in our closets. I tried to protect my daughter from knowing much about my childhood. I wanted her to be happy and did my best to make that happen. She knows that.”

“Same here,” the woman I now remembered was Kaylynn said. “They were children; they didn’t need to know.”

“How old are all of our daughters?” I asked.

As each one told the ages of their children and some grandchildren, I realized we were all mothers of adult daughters who were in many cases, now raising their own children. That was another thing we had in common besides our Y-names. The name thing was strange. I made a mental note to ask Thyme about that.

One of the women whose voice I had not yet heard, spoke up. “It does help to know that our families know where we are. I was concerned that they would send out missing person reports on all of us. This is a bizarre thing, but I guess it is safe. Maybe I will just consider it an adventure.”

We would all learn that Belynda loved adventures and was adept at creating them.

Suddenly, the day caught up with me and I yawned. Soon everyone was yawning, and we all decided it was time to head back to bed. Maybe we would sleep now.

It was past midnight.

To Be Continued . . .